


Vanitas

by Rotpeach



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Devil May Cry 5 Spoilers, Other, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 01:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: A chance meeting forces V to reevaluate what is truly important to him.





	Vanitas

**Author's Note:**

> an enthusiastic reader was interested in some more dmc, and i am more than happy to oblige! in the same vein as my last pair of works, i wrote this as a character study to get a feel for v. i've already got a followup fic in mind but i have a hunch it's going to take a little while lol so please enjoy this in the meantime!
> 
> **spoilers if you haven't finished 5!**

He is born with a half-spent hourglass for a heart. 

Is that not the human way? Time enough to sense his purpose in the violent churning of the world, to stumble towards an end he can accept as his body dies all around him, and not a moment more. He—the other he, not he himself, but the two of them, in unison, when personhood was an uncomplicated matter and time itself was not his greatest adversary—he had only ever watched humanity from a throne of indifference. Now he stands with them, walks hand in hand with them, and every step, every breath, every word he can squeeze out of his lungs is another grain of sand slipping through the pinched glass of his being, irretrievable.

He can’t afford even a moment’s indulgence, and yet.

“Please, just one more day,” you say. You are pleading when your paths cross. He is standing at an unmanned “welcome booth” eyeing a map of downtown and flipping through the yellow pages of a phonebook. He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop but you’re too close to ignore, humbling yourself before the dispassionate clerk at the utilities counter. You’re distressed but not desperate, your voice weary as though you’ve done this countless times before.

His gaze goes astray. His eyes trace your back, your shoulders, the rigid determination in your clenched jaw, drawn to you by the familiar wisps and traces of something otherworldly whispering across your skin. A demon in disguise, perhaps, but he can’t know at a glance. His eyes are not what they once were. A curiosity, then, at the very least.

_ “Half-demon, I can smell it from here,”  _ Griffon tells him. His familiars are stirring restlessly, their voices echoing in his mind as they pace and arch within the coils of ink on his skin.  _ “Don’t let that distract you, though, V, we gotta get a move on. Been here long enough already.” _

And he should, of course. There’s no reason for this, no reason to linger any longer when he’s found the sole devil hunting business in town on the map, tucked into a quiet corner in the back of the historical district not so far away, no reason to wait around when he’s already memorized the phone number. There’s no time for anything but the march to the inevitable, and yet.

“He’s not even in town right now,” you’re saying, quiet but firm. “He’s on a job, but he should be back soon. He’ll have enough to cover the whole balance then. Just one more day, please. I don’t want him coming home only to find the water’s been turned off.” 

“If he wanted to keep it on, he should’ve paid his bills  _ months _ ago,” the woman at the desk tells you, not cruelly, not without pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry, hon, we don’t make exceptions, even for hunters. He’s gotta pay on time like everybody else.”

He would like to be unfaltering; to spare no thought for roads not taken, to feel no hesitation when there is a fork in his path because he knows the way, was born knowing the way, came into this world and this terrible half-life burdened with an understanding of his own truth and the price of his existence. Griffon cries out with the frantic voice of his regrets and mistakes, his unfinished things, screeching,  _ “The hell are you doing? We don’t have time for this, you know that,” _ but his feet are already moving. Humans are so easily led astray.

“Pardon,” he says, and you turn to him, slow and cautious. You have a hunter’s sharp gaze, a trained suspicion, and you give him a clinical once-over from head to toe that tells him you are looking for something. Expecting something. You are amicable, or you try to be. Do all strangers make you so uneasy, or is it just him? 

“Yes?” you say.  _ Do I know you? _ you’re thinking, but you are kind, tactful, awaiting whatever answer he’s willing to give. 

“I couldn’t help but overhear,” he apologizes lightly. “You’re acquainted with a demon hunter?” 

You smile and it’s a guarded thing. “Are you looking for him? He’s out on a job a few towns over, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

His lips quirk, hinting at a smile. “And he left you to tend to his affairs, did he?” 

Griffon’s voice echoes in his thoughts, shrill and needling,  _ “So we’re makin’ this a priority now? Just gonna flirt with whatever hot little number comes our way, huh?” _

“He didn’t—” You cut yourself off, your mouth shut in a thin, irritated line. You’re upset. You don’t want to show it, but oh, little one, you are still too young to have learned how to conceal anything properly. Even if it is just a flicker, just the faintest hint of feeling in your eyes, you make yourself an open book before him. You must sense it because you plaster on another smile, more hostile than the last. “He’ll be back soon,” you say curtly. “Did you have a job for him or not?” 

He hears Griffon cackling.  _ “Well, now you made ‘em mad. Can we call it a day?” _

“I’ve offended you,” V observes. “That wasn’t my intention.” 

This isn’t what you’re expecting to hear, clearly, and he watches you fumble, erring on the side of politeness when you don’t know what else to say. “Could you just answer one of my questions straightforwardly, please?” 

“Could  _ you? _ ” he asks slyly.

Now he has your interest. You’re curious the way he is curious, looking at him appraisingly. Your eyes travel the snaking lines blooming across his collarbones and down his arms as though you’re trying to find meaning in a Rorschach blot. But there’s nothing there, little one. Nothing lain out so plainly as to be read at a glance. 

“A truth for a truth?” he offers you now. Your eyes narrow and you are half-demon at the very most, he knows now, because the hunger for answers one is not owed, the desire to open each and every Pandora’s box, is intrinsically human. “I am, indeed, looking for Dante. I have a task for him, time-sensitive and of the utmost importance. The sooner I can contact him, the better.” 

“You’re in luck, then,” you say. “I’m a secretary of sorts and I can get in touch with him quickly.” 

This is a half-truth, he senses, a fair trade for his own, but no part of him has ever been known to be fair. “He can afford a secretary, but he can’t pay his bills?” 

Your mask cracks and there is a real smile beneath it, laughter even, bright and fleeting before you smother it with an air of professionalism. “He’s getting the ‘longtime friend discount’ for my services,” you say dryly.

“You’ve known him long, then?” 

You nod towards the door, a graceful deflection. “Walk with me? I’m headed back to the shop now anyway.” 

Humans are often kinder than demons. They do not tend to eat their weak. You are mindful of him, of the step-click-step stride of feet and cane, as you match his pace. The sky is ablaze with sunset and you are wary of the way evening drags the shadows long and taut. You are looking, expecting, again; for what, he doesn’t know. Your fear is eating you, little one. You shouldn’t have been left alone like this, frightened thing that you are.

“You must be close,” he says absently, watching you out of the corner of his eye. “That’s quite a favor to do for free.” 

You simply nod, suddenly unreadable. Distant. “Someone has to keep an eye on him,” you say.

“And that falls to you?” 

Ah. He’s pried too much, too quickly. You close up with a nod, a tight-lipped smile. “I guess it does,” you say, and push open the aged wooden doors of Devil May Cry.

_ “Holy fuckin’ shit,” _ Griffon mutters at the sight of it. V is inclined to agree.

The shop is atrocious, littered with the detritus of a devil hunter and his transient companions; discarded bullet casings, cigarette butts, grease-covered napkins and empty takeout boxes. The furniture bears battle scars, cushions torn, upholstery stained and shredded, the floor dipping and uneven in places where holes have been covered, poorly and cheaply. You are muttering apologies and clearing a path to a heavy desk in the center of the room where the stale, musty stench of old food and blood is the strongest, several stains crusted into the carpet. V can’t help but rifle through the mess in curiosity. He turns over a torn envelope with the end of his cane and finds an electricity bill with a hefty late fee attached, past due by several weeks. 

“Please excuse the mess,” you say, tired, always so tired when you speak, and what are you  _ doing _ here, little one? You know your way around Dante’s belongings somehow and produce a clean sheet of paper and a pen from somewhere in the magazine stack on the corner of the desk. “Could you describe your request? Where it is, an estimate of how many demons, that kind of thing.” 

V studies you—your face, your expectant gaze, the idle tap of your pen to the paper, a quick and nervous rhythm as though true silence would be unbearable. And it is quiet here in an uncomfortable way. Dust drifts through a curtain-strangled beam of sunset and a ceiling fan spins in slow, wheezing circles. This place feels abandoned and you are left in the ruins, cleaning up messes that you did not make. “Has Dante ever told you about his brother?” he asks, suddenly, impulsively. The words simply fall from his tongue faster than he can catch them.

You’re startled again. “I—what?” 

A step forward and the floorboards creak, loud and protesting. Your head tilts ever so slightly at his approach and you are sizing him up now, aren’t you, little one? Leaning back in that chair, bristling, rigid with early fight-or-flight tension. You’re gripping the pen like a weapon, glancing behind him and counting the steps it would take to reach the door, calculating your chances of victory. You aren’t underestimating him, no matter his apparent frailty. Young, but so very cautious. You’ve been burned before, haven't you? When he comes around to your side of the desk, you jolt to your feet and he thinks you just might attack him. “Has he told you,” he asks again, arms on either side of you, caging you between his body and the desk, “about his brother?” 

Griffon is prickling in the back of his mind, dismayed.  _ “What are you  _ doing?” he demands.  _ “You’re sayin’ too much! Get on with it or leave, just stop talking! You’re gonna mess up the whole plan at this rate!” _

V knows this. And yet.

“It’s not something he likes to talk about,” you say carefully. You don’t stutter but your voice quivers, and you’re blushing rather nicely. 

Ah, but then the words sink in. He suppresses a bitter smile at the thought of Dante treating his fallen brother as a dark family secret, a personal failure, a shameful thing he can never admit to. One of the many unnameable dead in the road behind him.

“But I know,” you say. “I know about him. Dante’s not very good at keeping secrets. He wears them on his face.” 

“Yes, he does.” He waits, but you never ask. You know he hasn’t come for business—not as urgently as he claims, anyway—and you set the paper aside. “He would’ve liked you,” V says quietly. “The brother. He’d have found you charming and enjoyed your company.”

“Oh, really?” you say, and there’s an ache in his chest that he can’t identify, something that feels bruised or wounded at your wry, disbelieving smile. “I doubt that. It’s my understanding that he didn’t care for humans.” 

He does not mean to touch. To feel your cheek and the startled flutter of your lashes against his palm. Perhaps you don’t mean to lean into that touch, but there you are and there he is. His cane clatters on the floor and the sound is a million miles away, the last thing on his mind. “Is that what you are? Truly?” he murmurs. His words brush your lips and he watches the muscles of your throat tense and bob in a nervous, anticipating swallow. You lick your lips and there is a faint slickness left behind. 

He wants to close what little distance remains and taste you. He wants your body pressed against his, feel your heartbeat, hear every hitched breath and gasp, and the suddenness of this desire, the roar and the crash of it in his chest, is almost frightening. He can’t remember being so adrift in his own head, drowning somewhere between the shores of reason and wanting. His skin is hot and his heart is pounding and he doesn’t know what to call this.

_ “It’s called a boner, V,”  _ Griffon says unhelpfully. The creature sounds as though it would be smirking, were it manifested.  _ “Don’t worry, it’s natural, all part of growin’ up.”  _

It’s a sobering reminder nonetheless. He doesn’t have time for this, for any of it. The hand on your cheek tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. He cups the base of your neck and gently, softly, urges you into the chaste brush of his lips against your brow, a featherlight shadow of sensation. Your eyes are wide when he pulls away and retrieves his cane. You are still standing there, frozen, when he begins to walk away.

Finally, you answer him. “Does it matter?” you ask. You’re clutching your chest, feeling where your heart is raging like a storm behind your ribs. He smiles. He can feel it, too. “Does it matter if I’m human or not?” 

“It does,” he tells you. “That part of you is important. Hold onto it. Don’t ever cast it aside.”  _ If you do, it will hurt, _ he thinks.  _ It will leave you in ragged, uncertain pieces. _ He starts for the door and hears your footsteps, hurried, coming around the desk. What more do you want of him, little one? He’s given all he can reasonably give.

“Dante will be back soon,” you tell him. If he looked, he might’ve seen the way your blush colored the tips of your ears. “So you should come by again tomorrow. Whatever it is, he can help.” 

“Thank you,” he says. The hope in your voice is painful to hear. He is not whole, nor is he long for this world. He would only disappoint you. And yet, he finds himself turning, looking at you over his shoulder as he holds the door open with one hand and asks, “Will you be here?” 

“Yes,” you say, breathless. “I’m always here.” 

Night falls and he has no money for lodgings. He finds a quiet place beneath a bridge to sit and rest his eyes. Shadow curls up along his back, a warm, purring pillow, and Griffon perches on his outstretched arm. “We good now or what?” the beast asks. “Never seen you get like that, V. Hate to kill your buzz, but you really gotta stay focused.”

“I am focused,” V murmurs, eyes on the horizon. There is thunder somewhere high above, threads of lightning darting through the clouds, and the air is electric. The coming storm will be violent but short-lived. He thinks of you in the lonely, dark office of Devil May Cry, your hands pressed to the window panes. If he had asked to stay, you certainly would have found a place for him, would have carved one out of the heaps of garbage and debt notices. Perhaps you would have crawled in beside him.

“Seriously, what’s gotten into you?” Griffon snaps, fluttering indignantly. 

“I am human,” he says. It’s the truth. He is simply, sublimely human, and it is both the highest of honors and greatest of miseries. “It was one thing to know it, and another to face it. Looking at them, touching them; that made it clear and unavoidable. I am human. I am like all humans.” He takes a shuddering breath. “I do not want to die.” 

Shadow makes a deep, mournful sound. Even Griffon’s voice is quiet in sympathy when he murmurs, “Oh, V,” because they, too, are fragments, and they know. They understand. This journey ends at the cliff of being and their fate is in the unknowable abyss below, and there is nothing to do but jump. When he thinks of it, he feels as though he’s dreaming. It simply can’t be real. He was born with one thought, one feeling, the simplest of all desires—the wish to survive. But what will survive their merging? What will he remember of this brief, human dream? Who will he be, if not himself?

_ “Does it matter if I’m human?”  _ you’d asked, your voice hoarse and choked with the fear of rejection. He is resentful of a man who exists only in splinters, who scorned humanity, forsake it, tore it out of himself with a fistful of fear and regret and painful memory, and left it to die. He does not—will not, will never—deserve you. 

Griffon shakes his head. “It’s just a crush, V. Just more human junk. Don’t worry about it, it’ll pass.”

“No,” V says. He presses a hand to his chest and feels it; arrhythmic, burdened with sickness, yet another grain of sand sliding through his hourglass with a stinging ache, so painful, and  _ yet _ , “I want to keep it.”

“It’s gonna hurt.”

“To hurt is human,” he says, fondly. It is, as he would have once said, foolishness. There’s no time for this sort of rumination, a borrowed nostalgia from someone who wasted it. There’s no time for straying from the path, not in mind nor body. There’s no time to think of you, how warm you were, how you looked at him and you had, for only a moment, stopped waiting and expecting and looking so afraid, and he had felt for the first time, the first time in this short, borrowed life that is rightfully his, wanted. There is no time.

And yet.


End file.
